


Be Still

by ShinySherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, Post-Reichenbach, can be read with or without sherlolly glasses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 06:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinySherlock/pseuds/ShinySherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He chatters at her in half-coherent mumbles as she pours him cup after cup of tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Still

**Author's Note:**

> Written for redscudery's Achtung Baby challenge. My song was "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World". Song and lyrics available [here](http://shinysherlock.tumblr.com/post/81781028808/rainbownewton-tryin-to-throw-your-arms-around).

There’s a quiet series of knocks on the door of the flat. It’s six in the morning, but Molly’s already been up to feed Toby so she hears it, the pre-arranged pattern, two-three-two, and she goes to open the door.

Sherlock is cold and wet and shaking, and smells like the Thames, so she steers him towards the bathroom and sets the shower tap to hot. He’s in there long enough that she goes to check on him, but he only says, “Tired,” and drops the towel from around his waist and then is tunneling, naked, beneath the pink and flowery quilts upon her bed.

He’s still asleep when she gets home from work, barely visible in the nest he’s made of her bed. She checks his pulse and goes to sleep in the spare room.

The cat wakes her before dawn and when she pads out towards the kitchen she sees a dark shape in the sitting room. Sherlock’s form is thrown into fuzzy silhouette by the weak, grey light, but Molly can see--he’s dressed in some of the extra clothes he’s stashed here, and his hands are up by his face, right arm sweeping back and forth.

Sherlock mimics playing the partita as Molly feeds the cat.

* * *

He stays two days and then disappears.

Months go by and Molly goes to work and feeds her cat.

Months go by and Molly avoids Mrs. Hudson and John Watson.

Months go by and Molly thinks of the web on her wall, of Sherlock’s fingers dancing over the lines, and she wonders.

How far will he have to go? How long before he loses his way back home?

Months go by and Molly receives a text.

_XX XXX XX_

She abandons the dinner she hasn’t finished eating and apologizes vaguely, ridiculously to her date. When she gets home, she finds him in the bathroom. He sits on the toilet, head tilted back with a cloth pressed to his bleeding nose, more blood running down the side of his face from a cut at his temple.

She grabs the med kit and gets to work.

“Not broken,” Sherlock attempts, but his voice can’t work properly with the blood dripping down his throat and he starts coughing.

“Don’t talk. Just be still. You need stitches.”

The fact that he doesn’t argue, doesn’t roll his eyes, concerns her more than any injury.

* * *

He stays four days this time, turning her flat into an enormous bulletin board, the rose-colored walls buried beneath bits of paper and red string. She can’t make sense of it, but worse, it seems to overwhelm him as well. He spends hours pacing, then hours staring, then hours on the laptop, typing and scrolling, his eyes sparkling from the glow of the screen.

She only argues with him once.

“Sherlock, you can’t continue like this. It’s not sustainable.”

“It doesn’t need to be sustainable, Molly.” He waves a hand. “I’ve one part of the puzzle left and then the whole network will collapse.”

“And you?”

“And I what?”

“And if you collapse along with it?”

Sherlock stares at her hard, and bites out his words. “I’m fine.”

Molly drops her chin and raises her eyebrows.

“I’ll . . . _be_ fine.”

He turns away and pulls on his coat, walks to the door. He pauses. Throws a look over his shoulder as he says, “I’ve got you to put me back together, after all.”

And then he’s gone, door closed behind him, and Molly can’t fight the feeling that it will be months and months again this time.

* * *

The last time (before she knows it will be the last time) he texts her with their code, she runs home from Bart’s and finds him half-slumped on her sofa, exhausted and a bit dehydrated but unhurt. He chatters at her in half-coherent mumbles as she pours him cup after cup of tea. None of it makes much sense. He’s close (again). Just one more thread (again).

He falls asleep mid-sentence, his head resting in her lap. His breathing evens out though his lips still move a little. His fingers tighten and release along the hem of her skirt. She slips her fingers soothingly along his scalp, slides her hand over his to feel the energy still vibrating through him. Her fingers at his nape, on his pulse, will him into stillness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank yous to Jude for speedy beta even though they were at 221b Con! <3  
> Thank you for reading! Comments always appreciated. <3  
> (And if you're looking for more to read, I made a [fic index](http://shinysherlock.tumblr.com/post/105509221665) of my stuff by category which I hope is helpful.)


End file.
